Amr Salama
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Amr Salama (; born 22 November 1982) is an
Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
film director,
blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
ger, screenwriter, and author.


Film career

Born in
Riyadh Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the Riyadh Governorate. Located on the eastern bank of Wadi Hanifa, the current form of the metropolis largely emerged in th ...
,
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
, he later moved with his family back to
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
. He began his directing career primarily with short movies and commercials, after which he shifted to full-length movies. Amr Salama's released his first feature movie, '' Zay El Naharda'' (''On a Day Like Today'') in 2008. In 2009, Salama submitted the script for a second movie, '' Excuse My French'', based on, by his own admission, his experiences at a public middle school in Egypt after his return from Saudi Arabia. ''Excuse My French'' tells the story of Hany Abdulla Sousa, a student at a private international school who comes from a Coptic family. After the death of his father the family's socio-economic status drops and he is forced to go to a public school, where he is routinely confronted with episodes of bullying on the part of his classmates. Rejected by the Censorship Board on the ground that "there is no sectarianism in Egypt," Salama started working on what would become his second creation, the
AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...
-themed
Asmaa ''Asmaa'' or ''Asma'a'' () is a 2011 Egyptian drama film, and is the first such feature film to present AIDS patients sympathetically. Written and directed by Amr Salama, the film tells the history of a woman with HIV who struggles to live und ...
, which earned him international attention. Premiered at the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival, the movie won the award for Best Arab Director in the New Horizons competition and two awards at the
Fribourg International Film Festival The Fribourg International Film Festival (FIFF) is an annual film festival in Fribourg, Switzerland. It is focused on selected films from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Grand Prize is the main award of the Fribourg International Film Festival. ...
. After the 2011 Revolution, the director renewed his attempt by submitting the script for ''Excuse My French'' again, however the script was again rejected. With the appointment of another movie director to the Censorship Board, Ahmed Awad, the movie was finally approved. When speaking about the censorship issues he had to deal with, Salama stated that " he Censorship Boardthought that this film provokes Christians, and they thought that this film would cause a civil war." After releasing ''Excuse My French'', Salama went on to release another film in 2014, ''Made in Egypt''. This film focuses on a little girl and her desire for her stuffed animal and her older brother to switch bodies so the stuffed animal could inhabit her brother's body. The little girl gets her wish and the plot continues with the brother being mischievous in the stuffed animal's body, while the stuffed animal does much more in the brother's body than he was doing in it. On 26 May 2019 he announced he would direct his first project with
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, a series called ''ما وراء الطبيعة'' (''Paranormal''), released in 2020. He is a member of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...
.


Writing career

Along with his directing career, Salama has also released a book, ''A Kiosk Guy: A Journey in Search of the Handlebars''. This book has reached the top of Al-Shorouk's selling list and was also printed in four editions within the first two months of its release. Since the release of ''A Kiosk Guy: A Journey in Search of the Handlebars'', Salama had released another book, ''Return to Sender: Short Stories, Sort of''. As with his first book, this book has also reached the top of best-selling lists in Egypt.


Filmography


Films

* '' On a Day Like Today'' (2008) * '' Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad, and the Politician'' (jointly with Tamer Ezzat, Ahmad Abdalla and Ayten Amin) * ''
Asmaa ''Asmaa'' or ''Asma'a'' () is a 2011 Egyptian drama film, and is the first such feature film to present AIDS patients sympathetically. Written and directed by Amr Salama, the film tells the history of a woman with HIV who struggles to live und ...
'' (2011) * '' Excuse My French'' (2014) * ''Made in Egypt'' (2014) * '' Sheikh Jackson'' (2017) * ''Fireworks'' (2023)


Television

* ''Tayea'' (2018) * ''
Paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
'' (2020)


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Salama, Amr Egyptian film directors Living people 1982 births